Pre-Production: Planning and Development

The last post summarized what we had decided on last thursday, so I also want to catch up on our progress from today's seminar group.
I had already mentioned that we decided to work on the idea of the couple reunited after Death. This decision was made early on in the seminar, so that we had a lot of time to think about the details of the project.

Actors

The story gains its dramatic value solely from the two characters interacting. Only the girl can see her dead boyfriend, so no other characters can interact with them. They are intimate and trusting with each other, and their story is one filled with raw emotion.
It will therefore be very difficult to find actors that are able to portay the intimacy and the grief that they experience. If the actors give a bad performance, the film would be ruined, but it could on the other hand be very uplifted if the performance is good.

We are looking for the following:
A female protagonist - able to display grief, crying, anger, very intense emotion. Someone who can come across as natural.

A male protagonist - able to display maybe more subtle emotions, but intimate moments, care, confidence, and again, a natural portrayal of the character.

Those two protagonists must be able to interact comfortable with each other. They will be expected at the very least to embrace each other, and that intimacy should not looked staged. We will require actors who are comfortable touching and hugging each other, and make this look natural.

We will also possible require a few extras, although that will depend on the script. Waitresses, witnesses, maybe. 

Because we are looking for two very able performers, we were adviced to go to casting websites and organise auditions. For the latter, I have emailed the head of the campuses Drama Society today and received confirmation that if we were to establish an event on facebook, with the necessary data and some images to advertise ourselves, they would be quite willing to send our plea to their members.

Sach will probably be able to speak to some of the members himself as he has a few connections, and will also know a few people in the Campus TV society.

Locations

A very important location will be "the girl's bedroom". We intend to set up the room to give a lot of exposition, including pictures of the couple together, diaries, mementos, books. As the female character might have a history of depression, we considered making the books range from selfhelp and psychology books, to regular, positive fiction, to finally end with scrap books and photographs of her and her partner.

The young woman can be a University student, allowing us to naturally use the campus for what it is, and not set any location up as particulaly different to its real purpose.

For nature shots, there are a lot of forest areas around, but the exact locations will have to wait maybe until we have a better idea of the exact plot and script.

The Plot

A risk we see with the story is that once the boyfriend returns, the couple will simply share happy memories together and then part ways again. This would lack an arch, it would lack resolution. We are working therefore on a relationship issue that the two characters might have had when they were together, something that kept causing them fights and arguments.
This issue should be resolved in the progress of the movie, so that by the end of the shortfilm, the characters have forgiven each other, and said their goodbyes with their hearts at rest.

The Characters

The characters still need a lot of work and consideration, something that has to be decided on before we start writing the script. We have put some ideas in and discussed, and found that creating an issue for the characters to overcome would make it easier for us to then decide on the personalities that led to the issue in the first place.

We imagine the female protagonist to be introverted, calm, a people pleaser. Her greatest weakness is her insecurity. She rarely just accepts the good that is happening to her and is instead easily caught up in her worries and the little things that she tends to blow out of proportion. She projects her insecurities onto other people, making her defensive and constantly on her guard, hard to approach for others and sometimes hard to understand, perhaps. 
The arguments in the relationship often source from her inability to accept his affection for her, and not always realising his feelings for her entirely. She needs constant reminder of his interest, and needs a lot of time spent with her. She cares little for grand gestures and instead appreciates the small things in life, for which her partner rarely takes the time.

The male protagonist is the more protective and strong of the two, perhaps a lot more confident. So far we only know that he takes little time to express his affection in small gestures, but instead just occasionally arranges a grandeur gesture. He offers her material gifts, certain events, and their different display of affection causes conflict between them.

The male protagonist possibly intended to move their relationship further and propose to her, but the female was scared and incapable of committing under her fear of being abandoned or judged. 

These are our ideas, but we still struggle to find a clear, resolvable problem between them, and to see which quality fits the characters better.

About the filming - our Intentions.

The shortfilm is all about emotions, grief, forgiveness and acceptance. It is a heavy, sometimes very touchy subject that could be portayed completely wrong if we are not careful. Actors will be important, but so will the dialogue, the script, and the way in which we film.

We all agree that we want the characters to show a normal, mundane, very real relationship. We are not aiming for hollywood romance, but the true intimacy that exists between two people who love each other, and often includes very special, silly, trivial behaviours that differ from their behaviour towards others.

We will have to be careful to avoid Clichés, and capture the story as something new and fresh that won't let the viewer feel bored. The story might be very predictable, and it will be hard to work against that.

Cian suggested that we portay the psychological state of the female protagonist through colour. We could turn down the saturation ever so slightly when the girl is portayed on her own, seen as she is by others, and turn it up whenever she is interacting with her partner. 
The world can appear more grey when in depression, and the film could mimic that.

Another important part of our discussions was also the establishing shot. We decided so far to begin the shortfilm with the girl picking up the phone and receiving the bad news, and then moving the camera in a circle through the room as time passes, showing the differences int he surroundings, different times of different days, and the girl in different stages of griefing. 

What is on the Agenda first?

We need to set up an audition, get people to audition, and choose two good actors.

We need to get started on the script and decide how many actors we actually need.
To get started on the script, we will need to meet up once more and decide what kind of characters we want our protagonists to be, and where the story is actually going to go.

Once these details have been filled out, we can do all from location scouting, to preparing the script and story board, to practising with the actors. Around that time, we will also need to write up a Treatment for the project filled with all the details we don't yet know.

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That summarizes all progress up to date. Anything to come in the future will document our further progress and how succesful we are in handling the different aspects of the project.